Presently known battery coolers serve to temper battery cells of a vehicle battery, preferably for electro or hybrid vehicles. Both a cooling function and a heating function can be required by the battery cells. The battery cooler can be operated with a heat transfer fluid such as a phase changing refrigerant or a liquid heat carrying medium, for example. Heat flows are transferred by heat conduction between a heat exchanger and the battery cells, and vice versa, respectively.
In prior art, the battery cells are tempered using heavy, massive battery coolers that also provide structural, or supporting functions. Often times, the heat transfer fluid, as to its function, is established as a cooling medium or refrigerant, being transported in one or several flow channels through the battery cooler.
DE 10 2008 034 869 discloses a battery. The battery is provided with several battery cells forming a cell compound system and a cooling body connected to the battery cells over heat conducting elements. The cooling body has line-like flow channels arranged over a plane of the cooling body in a meanding pattern. There is no mention of a manufacture of the cooling body.
DE 10 2008 059 955 relates to a process for a manufacture of a cooling body with an integrated flow channel for a battery. A line-like meander-shaped flow channel is produced using a chipless forming technology.
EP 2 149 771 discloses a device for cooling a heat source using a cooling body provided with several pairs of forward and backward flow channels arranged side by side in a cooling body. The cooling body includes several layers of metallic plates. The metallic plates have different cut-outs punched out or are laser cut to form line-like flow channels.
Typically the battery coolers, in addition to the cooling function, have a function to hold very heavy batteries. Therefore, the battery coolers are also designed to be large to provide support to the batteries. Such large battery coolers require excessive installation space and disproportionately contribute to a total weight of the batteries. Moreover, a danger with such large battery coolers is that the refrigerant or the coolant, respectively, does not homogeneously temper the individual cells of the batteries, which may result in less than optimum operation of the batteries.
It is the objective of this invention to provide a battery cooler which minimizes installation space, while being easy to manufacture, economical in material consumption, and structurally robust.